The Horror of Magic
by TD Inc
Summary: When contact with a small town outside of Dublin is lost following a warning, the witty Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain are sent to investigate. But what they find is nothing like what they've ever dealt with. This time, survival isn't guaranteed.


Gunshots echoed through the dimly lit street as four more bodies crumpled to the ground in a bloody mess. My heart raced, my limbs ached, and my mind was in overdrive. The constant groaning and the shuffling of the feet of the creatures, as that was the only way to describe them at that point, had driven me almost to madness. It was no longer a willingness to survive that compelled me to run despite the constant protest of every muscle in my body. No, it was terror that fueled me now.

I dashed down the street as quickly as my legs could possibly go with the undead closing in on me from all sides. I saw the shadows of more of the unholy monsters cast by a fire down the street and knew that staying outside would spell my certain doom. I ran over to a building and attempted to open the door, only to find it locked. I quickly began to kick it trying with intense desperation to bring it down. But despite my efforts, the door didn't give an inch. My blood iced over and every hair on my body stood on end as I heard more groaning right behind me and the horrible smell of urine, blood, rotting flesh, and other things unmentionable filled my nostrils.

I didn't even bother to turn around to see them. In a panic fueled moment of insanity, I bent my knees and dove through the window to the right of the door. I hit the wall inside head-first and was sure that I had either driven a piece or _pieces_ of glass into my skull or had given myself a concussion. I quickly got back up, although with some staggering, and went over to a near-by bookshelf and tipped it over in front of the broken window. And then I ran some more.

Splotches of white began to cloud my vision as I half ran, half stumbled through the building that I now found myself in. I had no idea as to where I was. The building looked slightly familiar, but I couldn't quiet put my finger on it….probably due to the blunt force head trauma. I rounded another corner and ran for a door at the end of the hall, throwing it open and then quickly slamming it shut. I took off running down the hall again faster than I had before. I ran at top speed as I heard the snapping of metal and the door flew open, dozens of zombies falling out as others climbed over the ones that had fallen.

I felt like a rat in a maze as I ran down one hallway after another, looking for anything that resembled an exit. I could feel blood running down from the top of my head and mixing with the sweat that poured from my forehead. I pumped my arms hard enough to cause the joints in them to pop and crack every time. I needed to get out and quickly!

I rounded yet another corner and immediately turned back around, only to find zombies coming from that direction as well. I was cornered once again and running out of time. I turned around to find yet another window and, against my better judgment, ran and jumped through this window as well….only to find that I was two floors up off of the ground. Funny. I didn't remember going up any stairs.

I reached out for the wall of the adjacent building like it was the key to my salvation, and it was, but to no avail. I hit the cold brickwork wall with a great deal of force, my head snapping back from the force of the impact and I almost instantly tasted a copper liquid in my mouth. My hands were scraped to a bloody mess as I tried desperately to cling to the wall as I fell. I fell for what seemed like forever and finally felt solid ground beneath my feet again just in time to also hear my leg break as broken bone jut out from jeans.

I crumpled to the ground as I screamed an ungodly wail that hardly resembled my voice at all. I cursed and shouted obscenities at the sky, screaming between each new set of swears. I then realized very quickly that what I was doing was absolutely the WORST thing that I could have done. I quickly and carefully picked myself up off of the ground of the alleyway that I had fallen into and saw zombies at the far end. My screams had attracted thousands o f them. I quickly turned around to try to get away in the opposite direction…only to find a large wall blocking my path.

I was trapped.

I scanned the wall and found a ladder further up it, but someone would have to have jumped to get to it. And with part of my tibia sticking out of my leg, jumping wasn't an option at all. I turned back around to see the zombies at the far end of the street…and they had stopped. They were simply standing there, gazing in whatever direction they pleased. Just as I was wondering what could have caused this, as zombies supposedly NEVER stop, they shuffled slightly to the side to make a clear path through them. And at the end of this path was they silhouette of a man.

I knew almost immediately who it was.

"Farison, you bastard!" I yelled. "What the Hell have you done?"

I heard a cold laugh echo up the street before I was answered. "I've taken control, that's what I've done." He said his voice monotone and devoid of emotion. Hearing him talk had always made me angry.

"Taken _control_? YOU CALL THIS CONTROL, YOU _**LUNATIC**_?" I bellowed at him.

He laughed again. "Absolutely. Do you not see how they obey my commands?" He waved his hand, darkness coursing around it for a brief moment then disappearing. The zombies slowly turned around and proceeded to drop to their knees and bow to him in a very stiff fashion. "I am their master."

"'Master' my ASS Farison! You're controlling what's left of their brains with your Necromancy. Do you have any idea what the Counsel is going to do to you when they find out?"

"The Counsel is never going to know James." He said coldly. "You'll never get the chance to tell them before you die."

"Wrong again! I tipped the Counsel off a couple of days ago to what you were going to do. They already know. I guarantee that someone is on their way here right now." I told him with a sly grin.

He remained silent for a moment before turning his back on me. The zombies slowly rose and turned to look at me once more.

"Let them come." I heard Alex say over the moans of the undead. "All they will find is a laboratory full of dead scientists and the hollowed out remains of city. And I won't be the one that gets punished for it." He said with much humor in his voice.

Realization to his plan hit me like lead pipe in my stomach. "You're going to pin the whole thing on Umbrella." I said more to myself than to him.

I heard one last laugh and footsteps as he walked away. I pulled my gun out of my pocket and braced myself against the wall and aimed at the closest zombie. As they got closer, I could distinguish the fresh dead from the reanimated corpses that had been in coffins. Faces covered in dried blood, some with still wet blood around the fatal wounds that had claimed their lives. Others were rotting or were rotted, their cold grey skin clinging tightly around their yellowing bones.

As they got closer, I could smell the reek of death around them and I quickly unloaded my gun into their midst as they began to swarm me. I watched in horror as one of them, once one of my fellow researchers at the Ireland branch of Umbrella Corp., close in on me. I dropped to the ground, eyes wide, as he dived down with his yellow and red teeth bore like a starving animal and added me to their ranks….

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><p><strong>AN: This is the beginning of something that I hope is going to be really awesome.**


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